I don't believe that the current spam attack is from the original users of those "handles". But that doesn't matter.

I personally don't think that denial of service attacks are crimes. But that doesn't matter either.

This was exactly the kind of "good fun" that the FBI is investigating on behalf of eTrade, Yahoo, etc. A prankster sets up a computer to flood a remote system with anonymous messages, the result is that other users are unable to conduct their cyber business and the system maintainers must expend effort to tidy things up.

While I don't agree 100% with those who call this a crime, the FBI and the court system currently treats this kind of activity as a felony.

The reasoning is that the time that chuck, diane etc. expend is value stolen.

People in the business of sleuthing cyber-crime have gotten very good at tracking down people's real identities.

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), February 17, 2000

Answers

Well, I just showed my housemate, you know, the police officer, this mess. A call to the FBI is on the way. Have fun Lady and Doomers. You asked for it. <:)))=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), February 17, 2000.

God will take care of you, you have that right. Just like he took care of Laura. He took care of you good, didn't he Laura?

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), February 17, 2000.

It doesn't matter LL. What you are doing NOW is the only evidence that is needed. Yesterday's news doesn't make any difference, Ms. Genius. It's no excuse. <:(=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), February 17, 2000.

Cory & Sysman == YES !!

-- disgusted (with@juvenile.trolls), February 17, 2000.

LL - deleting posts is NOT illeagle. Spamming, however,is. The sysops could delete every post and thread anyone wrote and still sleep snug in their beds. However anyone caught in the act of spamming is subject to persecution, fines, and possible imprisonment. Be smart, let this one go. Perhaps you might want to spend your energies more productively elsewhere.

-- River Soma (riversoma@aol.com), February 17, 2000.

LL/Doomer,

The sysops have deleted some of my posts too. I won't go into the reasons but I understood why they did it. This is their board, they maintain it, and set the rules for posting.

FYI, I believe that computer intrusion, hacking, and such are not crimes. I don't think these activities are the same as breaking into someone's house or spraypainting rude sayings on their walls.

Unfortunately, the current thinking in law enforcement is that these things are the same.

While Officer Joe-Bob might not be too sharp with anti-hacking tools, there are lots of consultants from corporations with names like Trusted Information Systems, and Haystack Research, that are eager to track down cyber-vandals.

In today's world, one of these types would hunt you down "pro-bono" because the publicity would allow him to bill $250/hour on his next contract.

I've met these types, they know their stuff.

Let me know if I can help.

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), February 17, 2000.

Cory, you can help out by e-mailing all these eager consultants you know NOW and turning them in this direction.

-- an army (should@do.it), February 17, 2000.

I'm a whiner? Come on, Doomer, I'm on your side. In computer security class, I used to argue the hacker position.

I followed the hacker boards, the cypher-punks.

I'm simply alerting you to what could happen. You could easily be railroaded. Here's how. Someone alerts the press that a hack is in progress at http://hv.greenspun.com, look for this, and this, and this.

They hype it up more, "It's a computer at MIT!!!"

"Could it be the same guy who got eTrade???"

The next thing we know, these threads are on CNBC, C|NET, etc. and the whole world watches.

Someone calls the National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and files a report. Then it snowballs.

Pretty soon, every wanna-be computer security expert is running TRACERT and backtracking the IP addresses.

First prize is the cover of Newsweek and a ten million dollar contract to secure the Bank of New York. Powerful motives to hunt you down, my man.

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), February 17, 2000.

to AnArmy,

I'm on doomer's side. I argued the hacker side in class debates against the establishment types.

I just wanted to point out to him that there is some serious talent doing computer security work.

I'd be the last person to turn him in.

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), February 17, 2000.

Imagine the attornies and the experts wading through the thousands of threads, tracing all those the IP addresses. wow.

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), February 17, 2000.

Cory, that flu must have pickled your brain. You side with doomersucks? You think it's cool to DOS the Forum?

So it would not bother you to give these vindictive insane spammers your Y2K e list address to destroy:

dc-y2k-WRP@onelist.com

-- hypocrite or turn-coat (which@is.it?), February 17, 2000.

I see a side of Cory I've never seen before... and I admire that. Unconditional respect. I give it in return.

But when extremes come to extremes? They'll never move me past my front door. Get my drift?

-- (doomers@suck.com), February 17, 2000.

Great Doomers,

Not enough to break a little spam law. Now you're threatening the FBI? You really aren't too smart, are you? Get my drift? <:(=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), February 17, 2000.

You're not making any sense, cystman.

Smokin' pot again?

-- (y@u know. who! (You can tell by my perfume.)), February 17, 2000.

So doomers@suck is a die-hard militia type. The FBI will love this one.

-- drift out (lid@nailed.shut), February 17, 2000.

To Hippy-Witch,

It's neither. I'm not commenting on Doomer or LL's position on Y2k or TB2K's editorial policies.

I'm addressing the question of what is hacking, DOS attacks. Is it a crime or not. In today's political arena, DOS-denial of service, is being treated like, oh, kidnapping, vandalism, cutting power lines, blowing up bridges, etc.

I don't think it is appropriate to classify DOS in that way. The press, law enforcement, and the courts are moving too fast and have already decided that DOS==cutting power lines.

I'm not saying that this current DOS attack is 100% innocent either. It seems to be more a public nuisance issue, like littering or not pooper-scooping, a small fine at best, perhaps a misdemeanor in extreme cases.

Read doomer's words. He and LL think they are, well, marching on city hall, carrying signs and maybe doing it nude. I'd agree with them.

Unfortunately for them, it's not my call. Law enforcement, the president, the press view it as cyber-terrorism or cyber-anarchism. This is how they would be charged and how they would be tried.

Remember all, the Unibomber thinks he was protesting.

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), February 17, 2000.

Cory, this is NOT like City Hall where people with placards parade up and down in the street. This is more like a pub or neighborhood bar and these people are like gangbangers who bust their way in, breaking glasses, knocking over chairs, intimidating the patrons and denying them their right to have a drink and a chat. Under such circumstances, you call the cops. Apparently, the cops were called.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 17, 2000.

For the record... Sysman is NOT a Sysop here. Just a regular poster.

And me? The worst I do is drink too many caffe lattes.

;-D

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 18, 2000.

Sorry LL, I'm not a Sysop here, and have no control over what is deleted. I have no association with MIT, other than a REGULAR user of a forum located on one of their servers.

If you want to go for it, give it your best shot, honey. Tell ya what, I'll tell the judge that I smoked 1 joint this year, if you tell him that you have broken a federal law many times here this year.

I'll be waiting for the SWAT team. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), February 18, 2000.

Consider this an issue of public/private space. In 'reality' you can not make a nuissanse (sp?) of yourself in public. Its a class 'C' crime or something like that. You get a tap on the shoulder by the beat cop who tells you to quiet down. If you don't then he upgrades the crime to a higher degree because you did not respect his keeping of the peace. Then he slaps the cuffs on you and 'escorts' you away. You could pay fines, etc. That's the way this is done on every main street in America.

Why is this different? This public internet space is like a small corner on Main Street. It is hosted by a benefactor and there is no 'password' restricting access.

To my mind its a matter of civility in public, which is indeed enforcable by law.

If it is a matter of 'private space' then the arguement is even more powerful in favor of law enforcement, just as you would call the police department to evict a stranger who is on your property when you have either posted it or asked him to leave.

The are laws against being loud and obnoxious.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), February 18, 2000.

Old Git, excellent point. Cory? your turn.

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), February 18, 2000.

-cory-it's a crime, and it's beyond a public nuisance deal. It's cyber- invasion. It costs physical money, it takes physical time to set up, maintain, and repair, the sysops are volunteers, there time is priceless and un-replacable once wasted on this,and BESIDES it's rude and obnoxious and vile. I'm amazed you take it so lightly, truly amazed.

--cory,you might wanna rethink this one, just because you have the tools and knowledge to protect yourself and interests, it doesn't mean that everyone does.People want to drive computers mostly, not be nascar mechanics.

People have come to rely on this forum for fast, late breaking news, and sometimes that news might be of such nature that might require-say- an evacuation, or a quick stock market decision, or maybe some other advice that would be very important to someone might be missed in the deluge. I've seen posts here that beat the mainstream press time-wise, in fact, almost daily. A DOS attack is stealing bandwith, it's stealing peoples expensive time and per-hour worth. If your time was wasted professionally, you might consider it more of a crime than you apparently do, or if your personal paid-for web space. Granted, the damages to the other regular readers and posters is mostly "nuisance", by allowing the legal cyber precedent to stand that it's almost harmless is misguided, my opinion. It definetly goes beyond harmless, and it also is becoming apparent in "real" physical society that some really sick people who act out their violence and control trips on the net, DON'T limit their behavior to the net. Last month a little girl in atlanta was brutally assaulted and murdered by-it turns out-an internet spammer and troller and stalker, a "serial" offender. This projection of "power" is the real issue, it's a dominace trip, and it's ugly when it is not wanted, and the board maintainers have asked repeatedly for the spammers to go away, that their welcome is worn out.

If you can think of it this way, it's a very obvious example of an entry-level crime, and yes, spray painting graffitti is also an example of that as well. Crime is crime, crimes against people, no matter how small or SEEMINGLY innocent, is still not good, not at all. I know you make significantly more money than I, so here's an example: suppose you come outside after working at one of these computer places, and your (fill in your vehicles description here) has been spray painted all over, and it's tires slashed? Or is that "minor" in your world, you make enough money and have the free time available for something you would like to put up with every few days? Same deal here, your tires getting slashed and the body work spray painted would be of neglibile importance to me personally, as you make so much more money, so I guess I shouldn't care, I should just say, "well, it's just a little graffitti, and he's got the mony to fix it, and the extra time, and why should I care if he gets to travel"-with the travelling being the ability to surf and read and post in peace here. Do you see why a lot of us think this is so wrong now? I'm not being a wiseacre, I just like metaphors and analogies a to get my point across. The issue of "censorship" is a red herring, the right to be free from censorship is from censorship imposed by any government. Censorship is totally ok when it comes to private property.

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), February 18, 2000.

Cory, when you posted that you thought that DOS spamming and the like were no big deal: this is the first time I am aware of that I have disagreed with you on a values issue. By way of counterexample, I spent a lot of time and effort last year researching and writing for my small site (that I could have used many other ways). When it got spammed by y2kpr-/doomers@- TYPES (I did NOT say either of them was involved), it was a lot like when I once had a bicycle stolen many years ago that had taken a lot of workhours to afford. The involuntary loss of my time, the inconvenience, the feeling of violation -- no difference of type IMO.

I do definitely disagree with you on this, Cory.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), February 18, 2000.

Cory's sentiments must date from an earlier cyber-epoch -- when hacking was a grand intellectual exercise in ingenuity, and wonderful fun to boot. And the point was not so much to bug people, but to show your cronies you could do it, and get it right. And even the people you annoyed appreciated your skill.

Seems to me that era is long gone.

What we're seeing on this forum is simple malice, with no redeeming social values. There's no skill to doing it, there's no merit in it, and you have to be sociopathic to enjoy it.

We all have hang-ups. Some of them are less useful than others.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 18, 2000.

How many of them even have jobs? Give 'em haircuts, a shower, a warm meal, a bicycle, and a pen and shove 'em out the door to go fill out job applications. Give 'em a sense of purpose in life, and maybe they won't have the time and desire to spend all of their lives posting here!

-- Psycho Therapist (just@for.LadyLogic), February 18, 2000.

Cory, you said, "Read doomer's words. He and LL think they are, well, marching on city hall, carrying signs and maybe doing it nude."

This might be a fair metaphor if one added, "and shrieking their protests such that people within a hundred yards cannot hear themselves think."

Though I regard DOS as more serious than you do, I agree that classifying it as a felony is overkill. Making it a misdemeanor would not preclude a severe penalty.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), February 18, 2000.

Zog, Mini, etc.,

I'm not excusing LL or Doomers@, my position is that there is a spectrum of crimes and this specific DoS attack is at the mild end of the spectrum. Loss of life, loss of property, loss of money, loss of time, some amount of iritation.

If they were an employee of a company and did this kind of thing to an internal system, they would be fired. If it were my company, I'd talk it out with them first and attempt to defuse the situation. If they continued, as LL did above, I would reluctantly send her packing.

If they hacked into, say, a medical system, damaged patient records and caused harm or loss of life, I call that a felony. If they overload a messaging system that alerts paramedics and cause harm, that is a serious crime.

This case is not the same as the two examples.

It is a judgement call. The problem is that cyber-crime is still pretty new and not all the angles have been worked out.

I will say, that based on the continued problems, I would not be surprised to see a police investigation.

This whole incident is unfortunate.

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), February 18, 2000.

First, this spamming is not DOS (denial of service); the server hasn't been brought down and none of us had any problems posting.

Second, I strongly disagree with getting the FBI or cops involved into this. I strongly hold the opinion that the internet (its users) should police itself if it is ever to remain a media for free-flowing information. There is nothing the gov. and FBI wants more than to hear complaints from internet users so that THEY can police it and take it over.

I've been using the internet for over 10 years, and I've seen this kind of disruptions/spamming and worse going on all the time. There were Ladylogics 10 years ago, and there always will be. But let the FBI and the gov. rule the internet, and well...there won't be anymore freedom of speech on the internet.

I advocate emailing abuse@mindspring.com, abuse@aol.com, postmaster@aol.com, TOSgeneral@aol.com, and spam THEM with our complaints, and often. Squeeky wheel gets the oil, so lets squeek!

-- Chris (#@$%@pond.com), February 18, 2000.